It is well accepted in the art that children have difficulties in using cutlery. Use of a spoon is typically mastered first, however the adept handling of food with a fork is more challenging and can take some time to accomplish.
In particular, children have difficulties on adequately spearing and retaining food on a fork. Often, the food is pushed about the plate for some time before adequate engagement with food item is achieved. This may significantly delay consumption of the meal, with the child often losing interest in the food as it cools. On some occasions, the child simply looses the resolve to chase the meal about the plate and demands more easily consumed food from the patent, such as a snack food.
To overcome these issues, parents and carer's often feed a child. However, this is time consuming and diminishes the child's confidence and progress in mastering the use of cutlery.
A further problem is that even where the child is able to adequately engage a food portion on fork, there can be difficulty in depositing the food into the mouth. Some children have difficulty in rotating a fork inwardly, as required to directly approach the mouth. Often, the fork approaches the mouth at an oblique angle leading to an unacceptably high rate of failure in depositing all food into the mouth.
Yet another problem with prior art utensils relates to difficulties in inserting the utensil with attached food into the mouth. Children's mouths are relatively small, and adult-sized utensils often do not fit. While the prior art provides miniature utensils for children, these utensils still have the problems of food engagement (as described supra). Furthermore, these miniature utensils have trouble in handling decent sized food portions. Again, this can make eating slow with the danger of loss of interest.
Prior art forks may also be inherently dangerous being capable of inflicting puncture wounds and lacerations if pushed against the skin or thrown at a person nearby. This is a problem not only with children, but in situations where the use of conventional forks is contraindicated such as on aircraft or institutions such as prisons.
The problems and difficulties referred to supra may also apply to the elderly, infirm, and persons having medical conditions such motor disorders or mental retardation.
It is an aspect of the present invention to provide a fork-like cutlery utensil that is more easily useable by young children, and others having difficulties in using conventional cutlery or in situations where conventional cutlery presents a danger.
A further problem is that children have difficulties in handling a fork and a spoon.
The discussion of documents, acts, materials, devices, articles and the like is included in this specification solely for the purpose of providing a context for the present invention. It is not suggested or represented that any or all of these matters formed part of the prior art base or were common general knowledge in the field relevant to the present invention as it existed before the priority date of each provisional claim of this application.